Classical Chinese
The Beijing Center for Chinese Studies
Summer, 2013
Dr. Zhou, Shoujin
Associate Professor of Chinese, Peking University
zhoushoujin@pku.edu.cn
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course offers unique opportunities to the learners to read and understand classical Chinese texts. As
a country which has a history over five thousand years, tradition is embodied in everyday life. There is
always a need to understand its cultural and social scenarios through the history. Classical Chinese is such
a resource that can help students to develop deeper understanding of the language and the culture.
Texts are selected from wide range of resources, including traditional thoughts such as Confucianism,
Legalism, Daoism, Buddhism, ancient popular wisdoms, historical stories and aesthetic works such as
poems and short stories.
Students will learn how to read the selected texts, command essential linguistic, textual, historical and
cultural knowledge contained in the materials, be able to translate some of the classical Chinese into
modern Mandarin or English language.
Students will be expected to do exercises in and out of the class, including pre-reading of the assigned
texts, reading aloud or translating in front of the class, doing homework independently (translations with
appropriate tools such as dictionaries).
COURSE OUTCOMES
The purpose of this course is to enable the students to read and understand classical Chinese in fairly
plain styles. Students will become familiar with reading in traditional Chinese characters, understand the
meaning of most frequently used words in the texts, and know how to check up difficult words/characters
in ordinary dictionaries.
As the course progresses, students will become more familiar with the structures of sentences, understand
basic sentence patterns and be more confident in translating paragraphs into modern Chinese or English.
At the end of course, students will also be expect to summarize features of the selected texts, such as the
author(s), era, theme and main content of the texts.
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COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND FORM OF ASSESSMENT
Grading will rely on two pillars: active, engaged, and informed class participation (20% of your final
grade); and a final examination (80%). Final examination contains sentence and paragraph translation
(into English), notes about basic functional/grammatical words of high frequency, summaries of
background information, such the author, era, theme of the given materials (known/learned). The
examination can be accomplished in English language. Bilingual dictionary can be used.
ATTENDANCE POLICY
Students must participate fully and timely in the lectures and discussions throughout the course, unless
exceptional circumstances intervene, such as a severe health emergency or family crisis. Please refer to
the following quotation of the TBC official policy about attendance:
“Only valid medical or family emergencies qualify as an absence, and documentation of the
same must be presented to the professor no later than the next class meeting. All other absences are considered to be unexcused.”
ACADEMIC HONESTY STATEMENT
Please see the following link, and read the text carefully:
http://www.luc.edu/cas/pdfs/CAS_Academic_Integrity_Statement_December_07.pdf
REQUIRED TEXTS
Naiying Yuan, Haitao Tang, & James Geiss: Classical Chinese: A Basic Reader in Three Volumes
Princeton University Press, 2004, ISBN: 9780691118314
CLASS SCHEDULE
Week one: Essays from the Spring-fall period to Han dynasties (770 B.C. – 220 A.D.)
Week two: Essays from the Spring-fall period to Han dynasties (770 B.C. – 220 A.D.)
Week three: Poems and short stories
Week four: Essays and other texts of prose style from the middle ancient to near modern periods
Week five: Essays and other texts of prose style from the middle ancient to near modern periods
Week six: Poems and short stories
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